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Obama Taps a General as the Envoy to Kabul

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has picked Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, a former top military commander in Afghanistan, to be the next United States ambassador to Kabul, an administration official said Thursday.

Tapping a career Army officer who will soon retire from the service to fill one of the country’s most sensitive diplomatic jobs is a highly unusual choice.

But Afghanistan specialists say that General Eikenberry, who served in Afghanistan twice, including an 18-month command tour that ended in 2007, knows the players and issues there well. That is a valuable commodity in a year when the United States will send thousands of additional troops to Afghanistan and the country will hold presidential elections.

The administration official spoke anonymously because the appointment had not been made public.

General Eikenberry has a track record for spotting problems in Afghanistan early. He sounded some of the first alarms about a resurgent Taliban and the need to keep the country from backsliding into anarchy.

He was also an early and vigorous champion of building up the Afghan Army to combat the Taliban, a top priority for the Obama administration. And the general repeatedly warned that the United States could not prevail in Afghanistan and defeat global terrorism without addressing the havens that fighters with Al Qaeda had established in neighboring Pakistan.

The appointment indicates that General Eikenberry has the backing of Richard C. Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

General Eikenberry not only has good relations with Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, but in his current job as deputy chairman of NATO’s military committee in Brussels, he has also developed close ties with European allies that could be useful in coaxing them to offer more support for the Afghan mission.

NATO has not met its pledges for combat troops, transport helicopters, military trainers and other support personnel in Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has openly criticized the allies for not fulfilling their promises.

If the Senate approves General Eikenberry, it would mean that four of the new administration’s most influential voices on Afghanistan policy will be active-duty or retired generals, fueling the concerns of some critics that the Pentagon has too much sway over America’s foreign policy.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the Central Command; Gen. David D. McKiernan, the top commander in Afghanistan; and Gen. James L. Jones, a retired Marine Corps officer who is Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, are all expected to play important roles in carrying out Afghanistan policy.

General Eikenberry, a West Point graduate with master’s degrees from Harvard and Stanford, would replace William B. Wood, who is finishing a two-year tour as America’s chief diplomat in Kabul.